"Payment card terminal maker VeriFone Holdings Inc. on Monday issued a press release trumpeting its victory in a courtroom skirmish with merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. What VeriFone didn’t mention, however, was that it is in settlement talks with Heartland that could end their multifront legal war. That war, which might affect tens of thousands of Heartland’s merchants beginning Friday, started when VeriFone sued Princeton, N.J.-based Heartland for allegedly infringing on its patent for end-to-end encryption of payment card data.



Indications of a possible settlement surfaced Dec. 23 when a Lawrenceville, N.J., attorney working for VeriFone, Joseph Schramm III of Fox Rothschild LLP, filed a request with a U.S. District Court magistrate judge in Trenton, N.J., asking for an extension of VeriFone’s Dec. 28 deadline to respond to Heartland’s lawsuit against VeriFone in that court. “This request is presented on consent of both parties,” Schramm’s letter reads, and is being sought “due to preliminary discussions that may result in resolution of the above mentioned matter and several related actions …”.